The present invention pertains to the field of speech recognition, including, more particularly, speech recognition in real-time over the internet.
In known systems and methods employing speech recognition, the speech recognition is performed entirely on a user""s processing device, or client. As shown in FIG. 1, in known environments, a client 10 for a user 20 contains and processes all the applications required for speech recognition activities. These applications include an audio input application 30 for retrieving audio information from an audio device, e.g., a microphone, a speech recognition engine 40, for processing the input audio speech information and making determinations of what was spoken, and a specific speech recognition application program for coordinating one or more speech recognition activities 50.
In these known systems and methods, the audio input application 30, the speech recognition engine 40, and the speech recognition application program 50 must all be installed on the client 10. The speech recognition engine installation itself is generally very large and complex, and, thus, cannot be supported by many clients 10. Further, many users 20 do not want to be bothered with such a large, difficult installation, and, thus, will simply forgo speech recognition activities rather than initiate and maintain the necessary speech recognition engine installation.
Further, in these known systems and methods, the user 20 is thereafter limited to the speech recognition application program 50 installed on his or her client 10. An update or new speech recognition application program will require a new installation on every client 10 using the speech recognition application program 50. This program update or replacement can be troublesome, time consuming, and expensive, causing many users 20 to choose to forgo use of speech recognition activities, ultimately resulting in the loss of goodwill and business for these applications.
Thus, it is desirable to have a system and method supporting speech recognition where clients are exposed to minimal, uncomplicated installations. It is also desirable to have a system and method for speech recognition over the internet, so that anyone with a computing device, or client, and access to an internet connection, may have access to speech recognition activities and processing. It is further advantageous to have a system and method for speech recognition that performs in real-time, or approximate real-time, in order that feed-back is reported to users without detectable delays.
The invention comprises a system and method for speech recognition processing in approximate real-time, over the internet.
A system for supporting speech recognition processing, e.g., for language learning activities, comprises one or more clients and a server. Each client of the system comprises the capability to input audio speech from a user, and store the audio speech into one or more buffers. Each client also comprises the capability to encode, or otherwise compress, the buffers of received audio speech into a smaller data representation of the original input audio speech. Each client can encode a buffer of a portion of the inputted audio speech before all of the user""s audio speech is input to the client. Each client can also package an encoded buffer of audio speech into one or more packets for transmission over the internet, and thereafter transmit the packets to the server, for speech recognition processing.
The server comprises the capability to receive packets of encoded audio speech from one or more clients at a time. The server can decode each of the received audio speech packets as they are received, and store the resultant original, or raw, audio speech into one or more buffers associated with the client transmitting the packets of encoded audio speech. The server evaluates the resultant original audio speech from each of the clients, and thereafter transmits a respective feedback response to each of the clients, to be provided to their user.
Other and further objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention are found in the following detailed description of the embodiments and the accompanying drawings.